


Holding the Tide

by NightsMistress



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 12:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy has always thought of his magic as a wild force of nature that it would be impossible to control.  However, reality has proven to be a cruel master, and you can't hide from what you are and what you could do to the people around you if you aren't the one in control.</p><p>Set after Young Avenger v2 #5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding the Tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClockworkKite](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ClockworkKite).



> Thank you to my beta, caterpills, who did not run screaming into the hills and was ridiculously helpful. You're a gem ♥ Thank you also to ClockworkKite for drawing such an interesting and compelling sequence, and I hope this lives up to your expectations!
> 
>  

It’s not until they’ve left Earth’s atmosphere that Billy realizes that everything that has happened to him over the last twenty-four hours is completely real. He’s been a superhero before, but that doesn’t mean that he has learned a decent coping strategy for the full body shakes that take place after something shocking. By the time they arrive at their new home his hands have mostly stopped shaking, and he’s aware enough to know that Kate has been watching over him for some time. Teddy looks lost and uncertain, though Billy isn’t sure whether that’s because of Billy’s unexpected freak out or something else entirely. He keeps hold of Teddy’s hand and squeezes it to try and reassure Teddy: _everything is okay, I’m okay, we will get through this_. 

Noh-Varr lives in a space station that is locked into a geostationary orbit with Earth, and it looks like he’s been there for a while. It doesn’t look like any technology that Billy has ever seen, which is saying something as Billy makes a study of the different alien species in their universe just in case they happen to have some kind of peculiar diplomatic connection with the Kree and Skrull empires. He asks Noh-Varr about how it works once they are aboard, and the explanation is a curious mixture of what Billy suspects is higher level mathematics and what might be an empathetic connection between Noh-Varr and the technology of the station. Whatever it is, it’s completely over Billy’s head. He smiles vaguely, nods at where he thinks the right places are, and tries not to make faces when Noh-Varr expresses surprise that they don’t cover something so basic in Earth schools. He thinks that Noh-Varr scavenged it from somewhere, but he supposes it might be rude to ask their new host where he stole his home.

If he squints through the windows that seem to be _everywhere_ in the station, Billy thinks he can see where New York would be, assuming his geography teachers were right. The fact that he can see New York is interesting, and reveals that he knows so little about Noh-Varr other than what he knows from the superhero wiki. His own first meeting with Noh-Varr was, understandably, unenlightening as to his true personality given that he was mind-controlled and was also taking them to be experimented on by the modern day Mengele. He was aware that Noh-Varr was part of the military and while he didn’t want to stereotype Billy had assumed a certain swagger and defiance. He didn’t expect a giddy music hipster who watches over Earth and pines for the Avengers mansion.

He looks around at the posters for cutesy anime movies plastered on the cool metallic walls, the collections of old vinyl records archived neatly on shelves mounted directly onto the walls, the Kree weaponry stored in depressed storage caches marked with a stylized mecha, and he is not convinced that any of it is genuine. Billy has known geeks and nerds all his life, and there is something oddly defiant about the way that Noh-Varr has collected cultural items from Earth and put them on display, about how his spaceship is _just_ outside Earth’s territory and therefore the Avengers have no authority over him, but also not inside Kree space either. 

As far as flipping the bird to militant societies go, Billy supposes juxtaposing weaponry with posters of Michiru and Haruka from Sailor Moon is right up there. 

He isn’t sure whether there are other unusually defiant gestures in the ship, because once they arrive, Kate sweeps them into what could be a kitchen. Billy is fairly sure it’s a kitchen, unless Noh-Varr is even stranger than he had thought. After all, Teddy eats, so it stands to form that Noh-Varr would too. He takes a seat next to Teddy, which also happens to be opposite Loki. He’s not sure this is a good thing, especially given the way that Loki is studying him as if he’s about to pin him to a piece of Styrofoam and mount him on a wall. He also isn’t sure when his imagination took such a turn for the morbid. Maybe it’s the suicide attempt.

Once everyone’s settled in there’s the usual discussion about how it is that they are going to live on the space station. It’s a learning experience for Billy, who has only ever lived at home with the exception of going on the occasional school camp, and so he sits and watches as the others work out what it is they need to do. Chores are devised and divided up, rooms are allocated and it is universally decided that no one wants to share a room with Loki.

“I’d make a splendid roommate!” Loki says, trying to look innocent. “I would hardly ever snore.”

“That’s not the problem,” Kate says. “Besides, who would you share _with_?”

Loki, apparently having already thought of this earlier, points immediately at Billy, who supposes he really should have seen this one coming.

“I’m already sharing,” Billy says quickly. “ _With my boyfriend_.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know! You’ll thank me for it one day!”

With the exception of a minute twitch that Billy only catches out of the corner of his eye and therefore is not entirely convinced happened, Teddy’s expression is carefully blank. Billy, on the other hand, is just more exasperated by the minute.

“You’d better not show up,” Billy says, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at Loki. Gratitude only goes so far, and Billy has the horrible feeling that if not curbed, Loki has every intention of watching Billy sleep for reasons unknown. Loki doesn’t even have the good grace to be intimidated.

America clears her throat. 

“Oh, very well,” Loki says with little grace, slouching insouciantly in his chair. “The two sickeningly twee lovebirds will be left alone.”

The conversation shifts eventually to more mundane things: grocery shopping, television schedules, how they can access the internet from space. Billy doesn’t bother contributing, slumping forward and resting his chin on his forearms. The adrenaline over the last day has worn off and he is bone tired, in a way that he hasn’t been since he hung up his costume, and he feels sick to his stomach. Fortunately, there’s nothing left to throw up — he did that at Broxton — and now he just feels weak and wrung out. Kate looks at him with concern and he waves her off.

“I’m okay,” Billy says, straightening up and scrubbing at his face with the heel of his hand. He’s surprised to hear how steady his voice is. “It’s just been a long day.”

Kate doesn’t look convinced, frowning, but she doesn’t get up from where she’s seated at the table in the kitchen-strategy room-place where Noh-Varr has a hopefully ironic shrine to Aqua. 

“You should get some rest,” she says finally, her lips pressed together. “You look dead on your feet.”

Loki catches Billy’s gaze and grins conspiratorially. He mouths something that Billy is too exhausted to interpret, even if he could lip-read.

Billy offers the group a smile that clearly doesn’t look as fake as it feels, and heads to where he’s told is the room he is sharing with Teddy. On the holographic map it only looked a short distance away, but Billy just wants to sit down and sleep right where he is after he turns the first corner. He can’t quite hear the sound of his shoes scuffing against the metal floor, and ultimately finds his way by leaning against the wall and stumbling alongside it until he finds the door to their room.

As far as rooms go on the space station, it’s fairly utilitarian: there’s a bed, a door, and a space where eventually there will be a wardrobe for their clothes. Billy doesn’t care. He falls onto the bed gracelessly — though, if he’s truthful it’s more of a fainting episode — and learns to his chagrin that the bed truly is as uncomfortable as it looks. He is almost too tired to care, but _almost_ isn’t the same as _is_ , so he alters reality so that the bed is comfortable and that he is wearing loose pajamas. To his embarrassment, the pajamas have Mjolnir patterned across them but he is too tired to change it to something else.

Billy thinks that maybe he should stay awake, talk to Teddy, _apologize_. But now that he’s down on the bed, he can’t quite think which way is up, or coordinate his muscles into sitting up, let alone standing up. Exhaustion is a sticky pool dragging him under, and he’s too tired to fight it off. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, or what wakes him.

As he fights his way out of dreams that are as amorphous as the interdimensional parasite he summoned through his bad choices, he realizes that there is a blanket draped on him. It smells of Teddy, and that hurts more, now that he realizes fully what he tried to do. He would have left Teddy alone, after everyone else in his life had died, it wouldn’t be in a battle, and he wouldn’t have fought to live. Billy is horrified at what his death might have done to Teddy.

He is better than Billy deserves, and the truth of that brings tears to his eyes. _I’m not crying,_ he tells himself. _I will not cry_. 

He doesn’t. Instead, he heads to the kitchen, hoping for some coffee to clear his head.

What he finds is Teddy, who looks up as Billy enters. Billy can’t help but smile at him despite his mood; it’s been a long, terrible day but Teddy will always make him smile. It’s a constant, like gravity.

“Hey,” Billy says.

“Hey yourself,” Teddy says. He pats the bench he’s sitting on. “Want to sit up here?”

“Not really,” Billy says, but does so anyway. The cool metal numbs his butt after a few seconds and he doesn’t want to think about how Teddy’s butt must feel. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Not anymore,” Teddy says. “After a while you don’t feel it.”

On its own it’s a simple statement: you really do stop feeling the cold from the metal benches after you’ve been sitting on them a while because your body heat warms the metal underneath. However, Billy isn’t sure that the surface meaning is quite what Teddy means. The idea of becoming numb to things is a philosophy that Billy came to understand after Cassie died, but he isn’t sure he likes it when Teddy starts saying things like that. It could just be that he could be reading entirely too much into an innocuous comment. He peers into Teddy’s face, looking for some sign that things are Not Okay as opposed to Billy just simply projecting his own issues onto Teddy. Teddy’s expression is bemused curiosity as he stares back.

“Looking for something?” he says finally. Billy sits back, but takes Teddy’s hand, intertwining their fingers. Teddy’s hand shifts under his grip to accommodate Billy’s fingers more comfortably, which is one of the benefits of dating a shapeshifter. 

“Just wondering what I did to deserve such a perfect boyfriend,” he says. He tries to keep it light because there is something unbearably goofy about saying your boyfriend is perfect when you truly believe that’s true, and keeping it flippant means that if Teddy laughs he can laugh too and pass it off as a joke. He’s not sure what causes it, and he certainly didn’t expect it, but a strange expression flits across Teddy’s face before it returns to its normal pleasantly neutral expression.

“I wouldn’t say I’m perfect,” Teddy says. There’s something odd about what Teddy says, something that makes Billy’s stomach flop over queasily, but he can’t put his finger on what exactly it is. He doesn’t want to think about it too much; he’s spent entirely too much time over the last day feeling nauseous and doesn’t want to throw up again.

“You’re pretty close,” Billy says, leaning against Teddy. “Thanks for the blanket.”

He can feel Teddy shrug where their arms are pressed together, and notices for not the first time the firm musculature of his arm. “You looked cold,” he says.

“I might have been,” Billy says. “I don’t really remember.”

“You looked really tired,” Teddy says. His words are careful, and Billy’s known him long enough to hear the words he’s not saying. He remembers how, after Cassie died, he would sleep forever if anyone would let him. He remembers how Teddy would force him awake, force him out into the family room to pretend to interact with people, and thinks this explains the fear he can see in Teddy’s eyes. He wants to smooth away that fear, because this is something that Billy needs to deal with himself. It’s not fair on Teddy to make him pick up the pieces of his boyfriend all the time, especially not now.

“I’m okay,” Billy says, craning his head up to look at Teddy properly. “It’s just … remember how tired I was when we were trying to work out how to make my magic work?”

Teddy smiles at the memory. Billy would stumble over the magic at first, laughing in between sentences at the thought of using self-help books as a magical channel, until finally his eyes lit up blue and _something_ happened. After a few times of that, Billy would lean against Teddy, his head lolling at he drifted in and out of sleep. They had to have their magic sessions at Teddy’s place because Billy wasn’t out to his parents yet, and he didn’t want to help them work it out by falling asleep on his kinda-maybe-boyfriend. He remembers from what little he saw of her that Mrs Altman was nice, in a vaguely stressed way. In retrospect, that was understandable, if not incredibly understated. Billy has no idea to this day how she managed to hold herself together for years hiding Teddy from everyone. While Teddy may be Captain Marvel’s son, Billy is sure that Teddy’s generous nature and heroic spirit is entirely from the woman who raised her princess’ child out of loyalty and love for her. Someone that brave didn’t deserve to have someone else take her face, even if it wasn’t really _her_ face. 

“I’ll get better,” Billy continues, forcing his thoughts away from self-recrimination. Teddy’s too perceptive to let him think about that for long, and too good at asking questions that would unravel the deception Billy is weaving that Everything Is Okay. “I think soon I can come with you when you guys do your superhero thing.”

“Are you sure?” Teddy says. 

“Yeah,” Billy says, eyes closing so that he can listen to Teddy’s breathing better. Teddy’s breathing is a little faster than baseline, but he supposes that has to do with the fact that Billy has all but folded into him and using him as a prop to stay upright. “I can’t keep running from what I am forever.”

“Kate says she’ll work you into the strategies when you’re ready,” Teddy says. Billy unfolds from his position and leans against the wall, staring at Teddy.

“She knew?”

“Loki told her.” Teddy’s comment is neutral. Everything about Teddy at this moment is neutral, which Billy has learned means that he doesn’t like something but isn’t going to say anything about it.

“I don’t like him either,” Billy confesses. “I know we should be grateful for him for helping us, but I keep thinking that he’s responsible for all of it too.”

“He took your magic,” Teddy says. He’s angry, and Billy can’t blame him because _he_ is angry too though he thinks his reasons are different. Billy is angrier that he let Loki manipulate him than took away a birthright he isn’t sure he wants. That’s something Teddy didn’t understand; for him shapeshifting is the tie to the parents that he never knew and he wouldn’t dream of giving that up. Billy had always known his parents, and while he had dreamed of having magic just like the Scarlet Witch, reality had proven to be a very cruel master.

“No, I mean before that.” Billy shrugs at Teddy’s frown, but doesn’t clarify, because it is only a few hours ago that they had been told that Loki had wanted to kill Billy. “It’s Loki. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him.”

“I don’t like the hold he has on you,” Teddy says after a tense silence. “There has to be _someone_ else we can ask to teach you.”

Billy sighs. “If there is, they haven’t wanted to in the past.”

“But _now_ , surely they’ll...”

“Now, they’ll just lock me up.” Billy is certain of this. It hasn’t been that long since he lost control on that street, drove everyone who threatened Teddy into a coma and then forgot everything he had done. He remembers the hate and fear that the Avengers directed towards the Scarlet Witch when they found her, and she had years of using her powers for good. Billy does not have that history. The thought of being locked up for something he could not help used to frighten him, scare him right down to the bullied kid he used to be, but now that fear is something he wears as a cloak. While the fear is always there, he’s numb to it until someone brings it to his attention. 

“Billy,” Teddy says. It’s almost a plea, but for what Billy isn’t sure.

“Please, do we have to talk about this?” Billy’s reply is much more naked a plea. “I just want to sit here with my almost-perfect boyfriend and talk about how much we hate the new storyline in Super Atomic Robot Dinosaur Geniuses.”

“I don’t even read that one, let alone have opinions on it,” Teddy points out. “It’s too avant-garde for me.”

“You mean _awesome_ ,” Billy says.

“Half the dialogue isn’t in English, you know?”

“That’s what makes it work. We’re not _supposed_ to understand it.”

Teddy goes along with the conversation, but Billy can tell his thoughts are far away. He drops in a random non-sequitur, and then when Teddy does not have any views about the infeasibility of Captain America going on a date with a super-intelligent pterodactyl with higher degrees in nuclear physics, Billy kisses Teddy. It’s not until he finishes and pulls away that he realizes how desperate a kiss it was, how much he needs to touch Teddy like this to not feel like he’s drowning.

“I’m sorry,” Teddy says after, their mouths close. Billy can feel his lips brush Billy’s when he talks. He’s breathing very fast, or Billy is, or both. Billy can’t make up his mind, and he isn’t sure that it’s important. “I was miles away.”

“I know,” Billy says and kisses him again, less desperately but with more purpose. “But we’re here together, on a _spaceship_ suspended between the Earth and the Moon.”

“We are,” Teddy agrees, but doesn’t geek out half as much as Billy thinks he normally would. There’s a pensive pinched frown between his eyebrows, and his gaze is absent.

Billy doesn’t ask what Teddy was thinking about. He thinks he might already know. He wants to apologize, but the words stick behind his teeth and hold his tongue down. He hopes, then, that Teddy can understand what Billy cannot say.

Instead, he says “I’ll start magic lessons with Loki in the morning, whenever that is.”

*

Magic lessons are exhausting, Billy knows. There is a wild maelstrom of power that rests unquietly inside him that has its own agenda, or at least that is how he wants to view it. The alternative, that his magic is an expression of his own desires finally given voice, is simply too terrifying to consider. He doesn’t even want to consider what kind of subconscious fantasy gives rise to a demonic grizzly bear.

“Do you know what you want?” his mother — his _real_ mother, the one of his soul — once asked him during their rare visits. It’s hard to arrange a time to meet: the Scarlet Witch is busy with her work with the Avengers, though Billy can hardly begrudge her for saving the world. 

Honesty compelled him to answer “No,” and he had to look away from the naked concern on her face.

“People with powers like ours must know what we want. We must know our own hearts and desires. Do you know yours?”

Billy doesn’t, not then and not now that they cannot even be in New York without transforming his parents into monsters. 

Lessons with Loki aren’t anything like lessons with his mother. 

His mother’s lessons are gentle, about understanding who he is and what he wants and learning to use that knowledge and conviction to guide his magic into the paths he wants it to go. With the Scarlet Witch, he had learned patience and self-awareness, or at least that was the intent. She is of the view that until Billy understands himself he will never understand his powers.

Loki’s lessons are forceful and more focused on hoisting his magic to the yoke of his will, unconcerned with what he feels about what he’s doing. It hurts, and he says as much once when an exercise leaves him nursing an ache inside himself that’s like the dizzy pain of a delicate bone cruelly broken.

“Knowledge is pain,” Loki says. His expression is neutral, but Billy is sure there’s a hint of malicious glee to his words. He doesn’t understand why Loki saved him, and moments like this suggest that maybe he shouldn’t have, that he has a _purpose_ for Billy’s life that is counter to what Billy would want it used for. “And you have had so very little pain in your life. Now try again.”

Billy winces at the truth in Loki’s words. The exercise is about conjuring a pen and _only_ a pen, without subtly altering the world around them. Focusing his will like this is painful, but as Loki says, he has had so little pain in his life. The only pain he has is the pain he causes. He uses this knowledge to force his magic into the small pen-sized shape he has imagined and _pushes_ until something gives.

The pen drops into his hand.

There’s something warm and wet trickling over his lips.

Loki is gazing at him as though he is a puppy who has performed a trick.

“Congratulations Mr Kaplan,” he says, smiling broadly. “You have created a pen.”

Billy doesn’t answer, and instead reaches up to touch at his lips. His fingers come away bloody and he isn’t sure whether to laugh at the absurdity of a magic nosebleed or despair at the choices he has made that lead him to this, to having to take magic lessons from a being who delights in mischief and chaos and who has a reputation for pursuing his own goals. He doesn’t know if he can trust Loki, but there is no one else who can teach him.

“I think next time we should just go to a Walmart,” he says. He speaks as clearly as he can, having learned at his first outing as a superhero that sloppy diction is no-one’s friend, and is dismayed at how his words slide together. His tongue feels thick in his mouth, his lips are numb, and he isn’t sure that he could speak another spell if he tried. He licks his lips and tastes the copper tang of blood, and he thinks he should be concerned about this. Loki’s expression doesn’t change, which Billy still manages to find distressing.

“Now, _that_ would be _truly_ unfortunate,” Loki says. “Imagine how terrible it would be, your losing control there! You really must learn to be more responsible.”

“Yeah,” Billy agrees, in part simply to allow the lesson to conclude. His head aches and objects around him are taking on strange auras. He wants nothing more than to cover his head with a pillow and sleep. He knows that summoning a pen is something he used to be able to do with a thought, _is_ something he can do with a thought, but summoning only a pen without using any more magic than is necessary is difficult. The rest of his power wants to be used, and wants to use him as a channel whether he wills it or not. Often it feels like he is trying to use a straw to siphon off water from a tsunami before it crashes over him and drags him under.

He knows he should think about his magic lessons. He knows that he should go to where the others are, talk to them, exchange theories about the Skrulls giving them a hard time wherever they go, kiss Teddy in the dark corners where Teddy thinks no one can see. Instead, he’s too bone weary to think about anything else but sleep. He hasn’t felt this bone weary since he started using his magic, which he supposes in an abstract way makes sense. It has been a long time, and he wasn’t very good at it then.

This time, he manages to make it to the bedroom he shares with Teddy on the spaceship without using the wall as a prop, and collapses onto the bed. He does not remember falling asleep, and only remembers that his dreams were dark, hot and very strange. It’s nothing unusual for him; he’s used to dreaming strange and alien things since he started to use his magic again. He hasn’t told anyone about his dreams. He tried once, to Kate, but his words fell heavy and meaningless between them. She looked at him with concern, and told him that she’d be here if he wanted to talk. 

Billy isn’t sure that he will ever have the words to describe what magic is to him and what it is doing to him.

He wakes up to Teddy sitting on the bed, the damp cloth of his pants pressing lightly against Billy’s shoulder where Teddy’s hip is.

“It’s raining?” Billy asks, rolling onto his back. He realizes a short time later how ridiculous that question is and makes a face.

“What?” Teddy looks startled, blinking down at Billy like he wasn’t aware he was there, let alone awake. Then he smiles sheepishly and rubs the back of his head. Billy notices idly that Teddy’s hair is still wet, clinging to his face in damp tendrils, which Billy finds unbearably cute. “Oh. Yeah, it is where I was.”

“So there isn’t a localized rain storm in space,” Billy says, pushing himself up onto his elbows. His bones ache in the way that they always do after he uses magic and he almost wants to flop back down on the bed and sulk at how everything hurts. When they were superheroes before he used to whine at Teddy to massage the kinks out when they got back to his house, and then shamelessly use it as an excuse to make out with Teddy. He thinks about asking about that now, but Teddy looks distracted and he wants to know what’s up with that first.

“Not today, anyway,” Teddy says. 

“Ugh, _don’t_ ,” Billy protests. Last week he had accidentally conjured a rainstorm instead of forecasting the weather. Everyone had taken it as in stride as they could, but Billy remains mortified every time it comes up. The corridors had smelled of damp metal for _days_.

“It was pretty funny,” Teddy says and smiles. Billy can feel his stomach flopping over pleasantly as he smiles back. They’ve been dating for ages now, Billy holds tentative dreams of marrying Teddy at some point and adopting six billion adorable precocious children, and every time Teddy smiles at him it’s like their first date all over again.

“I guess it was a _little_ funny,” Billy allows, flopping onto Teddy’s leg and looking up at him from his lap. “Want me to dry this out?” 

“It’s okay,” Teddy says. “I was going to get changed in a minute anyway.”

“That’s if I let you up,” Billy says, shifting until he was resting easily. “I’m comfortable now.”

“You think I can’t get you up if I wanted?”

Billy snickers. “I think you could but we better lock the door first.”

Teddy looks baffled for a second, and then laughs helplessly. “You _just_ woke up.”

“My boyfriend is _really_ hot,” Billy says, trying to sound serious. He can’t quite keep the goofy grin off his face. “Did you go anywhere cool?”

Teddy’s smile falters for a moment so short that Billy isn’t convinced it really happened. The smile is back again after a blink, genuine as always. Billy wonders what’s on Teddy’s mind. Whatever it is, he’s not willing to talk about it yet, which means that it either is merely troubling or so terrible that Teddy can’t articulate it. Billy decides that it must be troubling, as he is sure that Teddy was worried about something serious he would say something to Billy, give him some clue as to what it was. 

“Not really,” Teddy says after the silence drags on a touch too long. He nods at the white plastic bag resting against the wall near the door. “I picked up your comics for you though.”

“I love you,” Billy says fervently, craning his head to see if he could see through the translucent plastic. It looks like an entire month’s worth of comics, which must have been heavy to carry around judging by the trades he can see in amongst the singles.

“I’m glad our relationship is built on such essential things,” Teddy says, smoothing Billy’s hair from his face and not once making a face at how it was sweat-dampened. This, Billy decides, is true love.

“Comics are serious business,” Billy says, completely serious. “So about that earlier topic...”

Teddy glances at the door, then down at Billy. Billy looks as innocent as he can, which is not much. “Oh, if you insist,” Teddy says, the mirth barely repressed. “But first, the door.”

Billy concentrates and the door closes. “I got it,” he says.

“I saw that,” Teddy says, already taking off his wet shirt and throwing it to the floor with a wet thump.

Later on, when Teddy is drowsing next to him, Billy receives a text message from Kate: you want to join us next time?

He isn’t sure whether he wants to or not, but Billy knows that the only way he’s going to get better at fighting magically is to put his lessons into practice during the training sessions, and so he texts back that he would once Loki gives the go-ahead.

*

Now that he has decided that he will join the rest of the team in battle at some point, his lessons with Loki take on a more militant bent. There’s still pain, often the kind that leaves Billy shaking and ill afterward, but he gets better at coping with it, and with functioning even when his hands won’t hold still and his breath saws through his chest. The Scarlet Witch never trained him like this. In fact, no one ever trained him like this, pushed him until his lip split between his clenched teeth and he wanted to lie down and cry like a broken-hearted child.

He can’t deny, though, that it gets results. 

Before this started, his magic was unreliable. He could be the team’s biggest advantage, if he could get out a spell _and_ if it went the way he wanted to. Now he has a number of spells on what he thinks of as magical shortcut keys, and they always work as he wants them to. Despite the fact that it _hurts_ , and he still dislikes being hurt, the fact that the pain leads to measurable results helps immensely. Instead of being harnessed by his magic, some days he thinks that he is harnessing it, though he doubts that he will ever be able to control it fully.

On a few, delightful, occasions, he gets the better of Loki. Loki adapts quickly, and then pushes him harder after he recovers, but even when Loki does the magical equivalent of flipping him to the ground and grinding his face into the dirt Billy knows that for a brief, glorious moment, it was Billy who had the advantage.

“You do have an advantage,” Loki tells him after one of their sessions, when Billy is too giddy from exhaustion to resist saying what he was thinking aloud. “Some of us aspire to manipulate chaos, and you simply _are_ chaos.”

Billy is always wary when Loki says things like this. He is sure that there is a hidden meaning in Loki’s words and that if he can find the key to understanding them he will understand what Loki intends for him. However, he is too tired and sore to tease out his meaning at this point. He thinks that might also be Loki’s intention.

“That sounds like you’re covering your ass,” Billy says to try and bait Loki to tell him more, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily. The session today was Billy learning to use his magic to unpick the barriers that Loki put up, and Billy had quickly learned that the most efficient way to do that was to introduce a flaw into the weave of magic and then simply wait until it unraveled itself. However, coming up with the plan and putting it into practice were very different things, given that whenever Loki realized what he was doing he would shock Billy. His hands still ache and twitch with phantom shocks, and Billy makes a mental note to keep his hands in his pockets when he meets Teddy again until he is sure his hands will be steady.

“Would I lie?” Loki sounds aggrieved, bouncing on his heels for a moment. Billy finds these affectations incredibly disturbing, because it seems like the playacting of an adult pretending to be a child and being slyly amused at it. Then he pouts and it’s so genuine that Billy dismisses his concerns, and has to roll his eyes.

When Loki still continues to sulk, Billy can’t help but snort at the image before him of a god sulking like a small child. “You’re known for it,” he says in explanation when Loki glares.

“Would I lie about this?” Loki says, gesturing wildly with his hand as he talks. “After all, Mr Kaplan, what would be the _point_? Anyone with any eyes at all can see you’re a walking muck of chaos stuff.”

Billy has to think about this. As much as Loki is known for sowing chaos where he goes, he often _does_ have a reason for it, even if that reason doesn’t reveal itself immediately, and he doesn’t always lie. Billy has known for some time now that he has an innate gift for chaos magic. It would be difficult to him to not know that, when using his powers means he must impose some kind of order onto something that is the antithesis of order. While he isn’t sure that Loki is being completely honest about everything, this, at least, he suspects is true.

“I thought I was getting better,” Billy says instead.

“Yes,” Loki says. “Now we don’t have to worry you’re going to accidentally turn us into dinosaurs.”

Billy is pretty sure that Loki is exaggerating about that, though he must admit that being a dinosaur would be very cool for a few minutes before they started eating one another. He grins at the mental picture, and it refuses to go away even after Loki tries to convince him to take it seriously. Billy does take it seriously, as now he wants to know what kind of dinosaur everyone would be, and the flight of fancy has blown away any bad mood he had that day.

Loki ends their class shortly after that, complaining that Billy’s good mood gives him a headache, and so Billy sets about looking for the others on the station. 

He realizes, with a pang of regret, that he hasn’t really gotten to know any the new people in their rag-tag team. Billy has never had the knack of making friends easily, and even before he became the only openly gay kid at school, he’d made acquaintances at best. It’s something he used to find distressing until he convinced himself that being alone was safest anyway, and it wasn’t until he was chosen to be a Young Avenger that Billy even had friends.

He isn’t sure what he could talk to America or Noh-Varr about. He knows a little about Noh-Varr now, but thinks that all he could talk about when it comes to music is that there is often a rhythm involved. Billy was never good at music. America, he knows even less. He doesn’t know what interests them, and he definitely doesn’t know why they stay around here while Billy learns to tie his magic down to himself. They, of all of them, are free to go wherever they want, _whenever_ they want, and Billy doesn’t understand why they haven’t.

He realizes now that he could have learned this by simply asking them over the last six weeks, but he hadn’t thought to do that.

All Billy thinks about lately is bringing his magic under his control, to the point of dreaming of it. He doesn’t remember these dreams, but he does remember Teddy’s eyes, wide and dark as they stare at the residual sparks that leap off Billy’s skin when he starts awake, and the way that the air smells of ozone afterward. He is so absorbed in controlling what he thought could never be controlled that he doesn’t think to ask questions of people. He doesn’t even know how Kate is feeling, separated from everything that she loves, and Kate is his best friend.

In a moment of self-pitying introspection, Billy decides that the reason why he never had any friends at school is simple: he is a terrible friend.

He’s thinking about this when Teddy sits down in front of him and says his name. Billy looks up, feeling inexplicably guilty that he didn’t even notice when his own boyfriend came back, and smiles sheepishly.

“I was miles away,” he offers as explanation.

“It didn’t look like it was a nice place to be,” Teddy replies.

Sometimes it can really suck to have a boyfriend this perceptive.

“I was just thinking,” Billy says, fidgeting idly with the crockery left on the table. “How do you make friends?”

“Uh,” Teddy says, and thankfully does not laugh. “You just ask them questions and find out what they like. You’re bound to have something in common with them, and then you just talk about that. That’s how it starts.”

“I don’t even _know_ what America likes,” Billy says with a sigh, slumping in his chair. “It’s not like I can talk to her about her dead moms.”

“She would probably punch you if you did,” Teddy agrees. “You could always start with Noh-Varr. He’s all right.”

Billy frowns. “I don’t _mind_ him,” he starts, then looks at his hands. Billy has not really spoken with Noh-Varr and he understands that that absence causes Noh-Varr some distress, especially given his role in kidnapping Billy and Teddy and the resulting aftermath. Billy resists the urge to finger where the magic dampeners had been inserted into the shells of his ears. They didn’t leave scars, as Billy’s healings never do, but he still knew where they had been. “I don’t blame him for what happened with Registration. I really don’t.”

There’s a moment of silence between them. Billy has never told Teddy what happened in the Cube. He supposes he should, especially given that Noh-Varr also knows and may bring it up at some point, but if it is left unspoken it can be plausibly denied. Speaking it, in Billy’s experience, tends to make it true.

“Do you know anything about music?” Teddy says, presumably sensing Billy’s discomfort and shifting the conversation back to the previous topic. This is another reason why Billy thinks that Teddy is a perfect boyfriend. “You could talk to him about that, maybe.”

“I’m not really musical,” Billy says. “You know that, you’ve heard me trying to sing.”

They both wince. Billy’s singing voice can only be described as the love child of a foghorn and an angry cat.

“Maybe you should not serenade him,” Teddy said wryly. “That is, unless you want him to not like you.”

“I just don’t understand how you make friends so easily,” Billy says.

“It’s not easy,” Teddy says. “That’s just how it looks to you. It’s really a lot of work.”

“It _looks_ easy,” Billy says. He knows he sounds like a sulky child and hates that, but he has no idea how to stop. He’s lonely and unhappy and to make matters worse he knows that all of this is his own doing. “The only person I get to talk to around here is _Loki_.”

He realizes after a moment why Teddy looks so hurt.

“I talk to you!” Billy says quickly, trying to use words to stop the sick feeling in his stomach and the terrible sensation of emotionally free-falling. It doesn’t work, but he keeps trying in case it’s because he’s not trying hard enough. “It’s just … I don’t want to ruin the one good thing we have here with … _me_. You’re one of the best things in my life. I don’t want to wreck that.”

A series of very strange expressions crossed Teddy’s face, very few Billy could describe even if he had had enough time to study them. Teddy’s control over his expressions and appearance changes depending on his emotional state, and the fact that they change so quickly and so dramatically is of concern. Billy thinks one of them may be pity, and another disquiet, but he doesn’t know why and that scares him. He thinks maybe this is too far, though he doesn’t know why, and that this time Teddy really will break up with him. He knows he’s breathing too quickly and shallowly; he doesn’t think it’s a panic attack but he is afraid that now he’s ruined the relationship that matters to him more than anything.

“I think you can make friends,” Teddy says after a long moment, his voice carefully reassuring in the way only Teddy can be and his expression under control once more. “The next time we go out, don’t stay here. Come with us.”

“Are you sure?” Billy asks, and doesn’t care how vulnerable he sounds in the asking. “I’m a liability, you know.”

“You’re my _boyfriend_ ,” Teddy says. The pinched frown and crack in his voice is interesting and Billy wonders in a peculiarly abstract what that was about, whether it had anything to do with the pity or disquiet of earlier. “And we haven’t been on a date since forever.”

“Four weeks, one day,” Billy says automatically. Then his brain catches up with his mouth and what Teddy was saying. He winces. It’s clear what’s going on now, and he is easily the worst boyfriend for not seeing that his boyfriend was feeling neglected. “I’m sorry. Next time, we’ll go out. We’ll kiss until everyone watching us throws up a little in their mouths, and we’ll be sickeningly affectionate.”

“Vomit, very romantic,” Teddy says. The corner of his mouth is dimpling though, which Billy is taking as a good sign.

“Next time we go out, we’ll go on a date. It’ll be great.”

*

Unsurprisingly, the next time that Billy and Teddy go on a date is when they are attacked by an aquatic invading army, at the best beach that Billy had seen, less than an hour after they had arrived. It had been exactly the right amount of sun and humidity, and Billy had all but melted into a puddle of bliss after Teddy had finished rubbing the sunblock into his back and shoulders. Even America, who had been a self-imposed island in the sea of the rest of the Young Avengers’ antics, had participated briefly in one of the conversations.

“There’s some squiddy ladies coming to shore,” Loki says, interrupting their serious conversation about whether Captain America playing Captain America in the latest Avengers brawl game would be better than anyone else playing as Captain America. Billy is of the view that of course Cap would be best to play Cap, but he's distinctly in the minority and for a moment he wonders if Loki is just making fun of how he's being argued into submission by stupid arguments.

He pushes his sunglasses up his nose and squints to where Loki is pointing. Sure enough, there are what appear to be at least two dozen squid monsters emerging from the depths of the ocean, though how Loki can say with any certainty what gender they are is beyond Billy.

“There sure is,” he says. “I wonder what that’s about?”

The answer is quickly forthcoming.

“We are the squidmaidens of the great and terrible Fluffy the Adorable (Yet Deadly) Monster, ruler of the deeps,” the strangely bipedal squids declare, in perfect harmony. “Your deaths and/or discorporealation will serve as tribute to him.”

“Is that even a word?” Billy wonders, his eyes and hands already glowing with blue light. There had been a moment where he had worried that his magic would not come when summoned and that it would fail him when he needed it most, but it pools just within mental reach as always. He takes comfort in that, at least, even while his nerves are fraying. He isn’t sure that he was ready for this. He _must_ be ready for this. 

“How did they even say the backslash?” Kate adds, pushing her sunglasses up her nose before reaching for the bow she was using as a book rest.

“Less talking, more punching,” America says, making good by punching the first squid monster. It went airborne, travelling in a perfect parabolic arc, before hitting the water some distance away with an audible splash. Billy watches as America flies after it, diving into the water cleanly.

“While Chavez is beating up Fluffy the whatever—”

“The Adorable (Yet Deadly Monster), ruler of the deeps!” the squidmaidens interject, demonstrating their annoyance by slipping out of tune with one another and their choreographed fight routines falling a half beat out of step with their song. Out of the corner of his eye Billy can see Noh-Varr’s lip curl.

“Whatever! We deal with these guys,” Kate orders, taking up a stance with her bow in hand. Noh-Varr is already firing his twin guns, apparently unconcerned about the fact that his board shorts leave almost nothing to the imagination. Billy smoothly levitates into the air, feeling somewhat guilty for having noticed the unfortunate hotness of Kate’s new friend-with-undeniable-benefits-to-her, and starts banishing squidmaidens back into the depths of the ocean. 

At first he’s self-conscious; he is, after all, levitating over a beach wearing nothing more than a pair of board shorts and there is a good market for superhero photographs, especially ones from heroes previously thought retired. If he is going to make a mess of this, and he is sure that he inevitably will, he would have preferred wearing something a little more substantial at the very least, or his new costume so that he could hide behind the cape if necessary. These thoughts kept his first few magical castings hesitant and careful, taking exquisite care to pronounce each word precisely. However, after the fourth squidmonster banishment, he has forgotten his fear that he will be plastered on the front page of the tabloids in lieu of realizing that there were a lot more squidmaidens than anticipated, and is instead more concerned about ensuring that he’s able to provide enough magical support for the others.

Billy is convinced that his magic would behave as it always has, which makes him feel sick with anxiety. Before, when he was Wiccan with the previous Young Avengers, he would cast magic in a state of apprehension, holding onto the spells with his fingernails until he was sure that it would probably be what he wants it to be. He knew that Eli, and later Kate, always factored into their plans the possibility that Billy’s magic would have opinions of its own about being used, and either not come at all, or come out in strange ways. Now, they flow out of him easily, and they are always what he wants them to be. For a brief, dizzying moment, he thinks that this must be how other people with their powers feel _all the time_. Then Kate yells at him to pay attention, and he teleports a squidmaiden out to the ocean.

It’s exhilarating, being able to cast magic and know exactly what it will do. Billy can’t help but grin as he realizes that this time, in this moment, it is him who is in control. Teleportation is easy now, and he is able to teleport multiple enemies while remaining in the air. At one point, he tries shielding Teddy while teleporting and levitating, and he’s delighted to see that it works. He has to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing in delight that _now_ everything worked, because laughing in the middle of battle is universally agreed to be incredibly creepy. 

He thinks that maybe, he could teleport all of the squidmaidens back to where they came from, but he doesn’t want to risk it just yet. He’s confident in what he is doing at the moment, though he knows that he could do more, and he wants to be certain that he could do a mass teleport before he does it in the middle of battle. He thinks he understands what he can do now, but he isn’t completely certain, and the consequences of not being certain can be rather dire. Instead, he picks off the squidmaidens who look the most aggressive and whom the others aren’t already targeting. Kate yells up to him that he’s doing a great job and keep it up and Billy salutes. He’s afraid that if he speaks, his voice might crack because Kate’s approval _matters_.

Being useful, instead of being a liability, is something that Billy has missed. 

Finally, America shoots out of the water, holding onto what appears to be a very large tiara that would probably be too big for the Statue of Liberty. On seeing it, the squidmaidens moan in unison in a way that would make a choirmaster proud, frozen in place as their heads follow her movement. She throws it further out to sea and, as one, the squidmaidens throw themselves into the water and swim off.

“That was weird,” Teddy says, shifting back to his human form once he is back on the ground. Billy is pleased to note that he does not fix the length of his board shorts. Billy’s own landing is less accomplished than Teddy’s, as he drops from a few feet off the ground and lands awkwardly. Fortunately the sand is able to absorb the kinetic energy of his fall, and he doesn’t quite twist an ankle.

“And dissonant,” Noh-Varr remarks, putting his guns away and squinting at the horizon, seemingly unaware of Kate’s open admiration of his body. Billy has no idea how Noh-Varr cannot know this, given that Kate is not very subtle and Billy can admit that in the abstract Noh-Varr’s body is very attractive.

It takes Billy a moment to realize that Noh-Varr is talking about musical pitch, and jerks his mind out of the gutter.

“What was that thing you threw?” Kate asks America, and Billy has to admire her aplomb. If it wasn’t for the fact that he just saw her openly check Noh-Varr out, he would never believe that she had done so.

“Their leader is the one who has the tiara,” America says. “They’re fighting over it now.”

“That’s … surprisingly logical,” Billy says. 

“What happens when one of them wins?” Kate asks.

America shrugs. “When that happens we’ll deal with it.”

Unfortunately, attacks from cultists from the deep mean that the Young Avengers are politely, yet strongly, discouraged from ever returning to the previously perfect beach on the grounds that they may have summoned the aquatic monsters despite Kate’s protests. 

“It’s because we had Loki with us,” Billy says when they return to the ship. “ _No-one_ believes that Loki is up to good.”

“It’s a curse,” Loki agrees with a faux-martyred sigh. “Fortunately, I have my good looks and wits to make up for it.” 

"Uh huh," Kate says, but it's without the wary tones she normally has when speaking to Loki. "It must be hard carrying that much delusion."

"It's why he's so short," Billy chimes in, and is delighted to see Loki wince.

"I am going to be very tall one day," Loki protests.

"If you live that long, chico." America's demeanor makes it quite clear how likely she thinks that is.

It’s been a good day, and Billy’s in a good mood afterward in the kitchen area. Teddy has unfortunately put a shirt on, much to Billy’s protests that that was entirely unnecessary, and they’re sitting at the table eating a very belated lunch.

"I saw you up there," Teddy says after finishing his sandwich.

"Yeah?" Billy says, around a mouthful of food. Doing magic tends to make him hungry, and doing multiple teleportations was worse for that. He isn’t sure why that was the case. It is a good thing that he had managed to convince Kate that they _needed_ his favorite snacks for a quick energy boost the last time they had done a grocery run.

"I haven't seen you that focused in a while." 

"Focused?" Billy blinks. It seems an interesting choice of words.

"Yeah. It was like ..." Teddy trails off. Billy waits.

"For so long it's like you didn't know who you were anymore. Up there, you looked like you knew."

"I was terrified I would end up on the front page of The Sun or something,” Billy confesses. “Wiccan Discovered! Is He Circumcized? Let’s Abuse Photoshop And Pretend We Found Out.”

“Wait until they do the expose from your exes issue,” Teddy says. The corner of his mouth is twitching like he wants to smile, but he is keeping a straight face. Billy is very envious of that.

“I don’t _have_ any exes,” Billy points out. “And I wouldn’t want to date anyone but you.”

“Not even Johnny Storm?”

“I might have made an exception for him,” Billy muses, and grunts as Teddy punches him playfully. “Hey! We agreed! Johnny Storm is our exception!”

“Now you’ve got me off track,” Teddy complains.

“Sorry,” Billy says. He both is and is not sorry. What Teddy has to say seems bizarrely intimate, and he’s not sure that he wants to hear it.

“I just feel like you’re more _you_ when you’re not afraid to be Wiccan too,” Teddy says in a rush. “When you use your magic like a _superhero_ , because that’s what you are.”

Billy doesn’t say anything for a moment, and the silence hangs awkwardly between them.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “That’s what I thought as well.” He’s peculiarly unhappy about this; he’d spent a year being someone else, someone that didn’t need to be Wiccan in order to be complete, and it seems like Teddy was saying that he was a partial person because of it.

“Don't get me wrong,” Teddy says. “I think you needed the time off. I think we all needed that break. But you’re more you now than you were.”

“I guess,” Billy says, squirming a little. “I still don’t know if I like my magic.”

“It can come in handy,” Teddy says. “You’re really handy with the laundry, though I think you made my shorts too short.”

“No, I didn’t,” Billy says, and waits for Teddy to get his meaning.

“You’re _terrible_ ,” Teddy says and pulls him in for a kiss. Billy lets him.

*

Later on, after he’s fixed his hair, Billy looks for Kate.

“I’m ready to join you guys,” he says. “For real.”

“Are you sure, Billy?” Kate asks. Kate’s always been difficult to read, but Billy can see the concern in the way she frowns slightly as she speaks. It’s the concern that means that Billy doesn’t fire back with how obviously he is all right because he just _showed_ them that he was on the beach, or wonder whether he was deluding himself that he did all right. 

“I’m sure,” Billy says. His voice is steady, and he’s startled to note that it’s not a lie. Billy _is_ sure that he is ready to go out and fight with the others.

“He hasn’t summoned a hungry demonic grizzly bear in over a month! I don’t know why you’re worrying, Kate Bishop,” Loki announces from the doorway. Billy whirls around.

“Where do you even come from?” he demands.

“I have my ways,” Loki says, cheerfully ignoring Billy’s annoyed hostility. Billy does his best to ignore Loki, which is difficult when he deliberately moves around in the corner of Billy’s eye to draw his attention. It’s incredibly exasperating and if this was how Loki was like as a child, Billy has no idea how the Asgardians didn’t smother him in his sleep.

“Are you _sure_ we can’t just tie him to the outside of the ship?” Billy asks Kate, who looks sorely tempted by the proposition.

“If _only_ ,” she says. Billy can’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses, but he knows she’s rolling them anyway. “Noh-Varr says it would ruin the aesthetic.”

“And we can’t have that,” Billy says with a grin. Though he hadn’t said much to Noh-Varr and honestly didn’t know him that well yet, the month that he had spent living with him and observing him around the others had shown Billy that when he wasn’t being controlled to kidnap queer teens he was actually a pretty funny guy. He suspected though Kate was into him more because he was _really hot_ than anything else. It was a sentiment he hasn’t shared with Teddy yet; there is something uncertain about their relationship at the moment, and Billy isn’t quite sure what to do about it. Joking about Johnny Storm is one thing, but this seems entirely different.

“He is _such_ a hipster,” Kate says with fond exasperation. “I don’t know why I put up with him.”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Billy says, and dodges with a laugh as Kate throws a playful punch his way. “You do sigh dreamily every time his clothes get damaged. Which is a _lot_.”

“Any sighs are from exasperation only and there is no dreaminess involved,” Kate says.

Loki has this peculiar expression on his face that makes Billy wonder just how old Loki actually is, though it quickly shifts into adolescent disgust when he notices Billy’s gaze on him.

“There’s no judging,” Billy says to Kate, his hand resting over his heart. “I saw him at the beach. Good on you.”

“ _Billy_ ,” Kate says, dragging out the i and y.

“What’s he done now?” Teddy asks, as he enters the room as Hulkling. “You’re sunburned by the way,” he tells Billy as an aside. “I don’t know how I didn’t notice it earlier.”

Judging by her expression, Kate is trying not to laugh. Billy thinks she isn’t trying hard enough.

“I _know_ ,” Billy says, aggrieved at both the sunburn and Kate’s amusement. “I couldn’t get it to heal properly.”

“He was telling her that Noh-Varr has admirable abdominals,” Loki chimes in at the same time.

“That he does,” Teddy agrees easily.

“But _really_ what we were talking about was that I’m ready to join you guys,” Billy says.

“I told you already today,” Teddy says. “You were pretty good.”

“Well, you know,” Billy says, blushing a little at the compliment. “Fluffy the Adorable (Yet Deadly) Monster is a terrible name. I couldn’t let you guys get sacrificed to something with that stupid a name.”

“Yeah, at least make sure it’s a _mediocre_ name,” Kate says. “Though Teddy’s right. You _were_ good out there.”

“Thanks,” Billy says. “Everything just felt right out there. Like we’re a team.”

“If you’re sure, you’d be an asset,” Kate says. “We could use you out there.”

Kate telling him that he was useful and reliable brightened Billy’s mood more than he expects.

*

Billy’s good mood does not last very long. As per usual, it’s Loki’s fault.

They are practicing teleporting and shielding as, according to Loki, Billy was very sloppy the last time he did it. Billy thinks that Loki is over exaggerating, but he can’t deny that he has gotten better during this session. The point is for Billy to teleport or block any magical assault from Loki, from any direction. At first it is difficult, with Billy barely being able to block or avoid the blasts from Loki’s fingers. Then, as he falls into the rhythm of it, Billy realizes something. Loki cannot touch him. No matter where he appears, or what he does, Loki’s magic cannot touch him. 

It’s something that goes right down to the scared boy he used to be, something that tells him that _now_ he is empowered, now he has the power to ensure that he’s never hurt again. It’s a beautiful epiphany, and at the end of the session Billy still hasn’t stopped smiling. Loki’s obvious displeasure just makes Billy smile more.

“I’m so going to have to tell Teddy about this,” Billy says afterward, leaning against a wall casually. Loki is sitting on the floor and breathing heavily, but manages to spare enough breath to pull off a very coolly amused glance up at Billy.

“You’d have to find him first. He does leave often, doesn’t he? Don’t you ever wonder where? Or why?” He pauses, presumably for effect. “ _I_ would.”

“Uh, no?” Billy says, as he levers himself off the wall as casually as he can to start his search. “We’re dating, not attached to one another.”

But he does wonder.

Teddy goes away every so often and Billy isn’t sure why he is anxious about this. It’s not that Billy feels possessive about him. Billy knows, right down to his bones, that he has nothing to fear about Teddy being unfaithful. Teddy being what Billy needs when he needs it is a constant in Billy’s life, to the point that Billy feels guilty that he cannot be that person for Teddy.

He’s been thinking a lot about Mrs Altman lately — the real one, not the one that he conjured up a few months ago — and realizing that he doesn’t have too many solid memories of her. He remembers that when she was human, she looked a lot like Teddy, both with blond hair and bright blue eyes. She looked barely old enough to be his cool aunt, let alone his mother. He remembers that she used to do Yoga and Pilates, fitting it in around her work to keep Teddy clothed and fed, and that sometimes Teddy would join in. Billy had felt too self-conscious and so hadn’t taken up the invitations Teddy extended to do one of their classes together, and now he wishes that he had overcome his own nerves and gone along.

He doesn’t remember things like what her real name was. He isn’t sure how much of the woman he knew was a construct built to protect the heir to the Skrull and Kree Empires and how much of it was really her, and now he’ll never be sure. He turns over his memories of her again and again, to see if this time he can find what it was that meant that he summoned something _else_ rather than Teddy’s mom. The more he thinks about it, the more his memories of her unravel. They were always wispy. Now they’re nothing more than strands of recollections sticking to his fingers.

He thinks that maybe he could have succeeded in bringing Teddy’s mother back if he had known her better. When he had known her, she was simply ‘Teddy’s mom’ but people have more to them than that. 

“Did you ever meet Teddy’s mom?” he asks Kate the next time Teddy goes away for a bit. Kate puts down her copy of Archers Weekly.

“Not for very long,” she says. “Why?”

“I don’t really remember her,” Billy says. He sighs. “I keep thinking that maybe if I remembered her properly I could have brought her back properly.”

“Billy.” It’s a warning, and Billy looks up from his careful consideration of the metallic finish of the table.

“Yeah?” he says after the silence drags on too long for his liking.

“Billy,” Kate says again. It’s a message, but one that Billy isn’t able to interpret.

“Yeah?”

“What makes you think Teddy would _want_ you to bring back his mom?”

Billy frowns. “Because she’s his _mom_ and she’s dead. He’s lost everything, and it’s tearing him up inside. Why wouldn’t he want her back?”

Kate sighs before taking a sip of her coffee. “Because she _died_.”

“I know that! But I thought that we could bring her back, we could bring Cassie back too!”

The room is silent after that.

“We’re not bringing Cassie back.” It’s non-negotiable, and all the worse because Billy knows that behind the cold words are a lot of pain.

Billy looks away from Kate. “I know. I was just saying that’s what I _thought_. Make up for my mistakes with her.”

“You know there’s nothing to make up there.” Kate takes another sip of her coffee. “Look, I get feeling bad and wanting to make it better. That maybe if we’d been better we could have saved them. But part of that is accepting that there are things we cannot do and learning to make peace with that.” She pinches the bridge of her nose before letting her hand fall to her side. “I know you want to make things better for Teddy. Everyone knows you love him. But let the dead stay dead, okay?”

“Do you really think I couldn’t have brought them back?” Billy says.

“Yeah,” Kate says. “And I think the consequences of your trying weren’t as bad as they could be.”

It was Billy’s turn to be skeptical. “Kate,” he says. “We’re running from a monster that can turn into … pancake batter or something, that has Teddy’s mother’s _face_.”

“I know,” Kate says. “I was there.”

“How could it get worse?”

Kate doesn’t say anything, and Billy can understand why after he realizes what he has just said. He does know how it could get worse. He is one half of a perfect living embodiment of how things could get worse. 

“Okay,” Billy says. “That was dumb.”

“No kidding,” Kate says, deadpan. “For a smart guy you can be really dumb.”

“Thanks,” Billy says, all but rolling his eyes. He thinks about it, but decides that it would be unfair. She is right after all.

“The thing is …” Kate says, then stops. She interlaces her fingers together in a careful, deliberate fashion. If Billy didn’t know better, she was trying to avoid the topic. “You’re a good guy. A good friend. I know you wouldn’t do anything deliberately to hurt Teddy.”

“There’s a but,” Billy says.

“Yeah. There is. That Mrs A and Cassie are dead _sucks_. But you’re too busy focusing on the fact that they died to remember that they were real people. They’re not just a tragedy.”

“I’m not,” Billy says, but even as he says it he realizes that Kate’s telling the truth. “I am,” he says. He smiles a little at Kate, his smile wry and crooked. “I really am stupid sometimes.”

“Don’t dwell on it,” she says. “Also you should talk to Teddy.”

Billy blinks.

“What? Why? I spoke to him this morning.”

“I mean talk to him _about this_.” Kate’s expression is impatient as she taps the table with her index finger for emphasis.

Billy shifts in his seat. “I don’t want to worry him.”

He’s aware of Kate’s careful examination of his face, and is acutely aware that the hoodie he is wearing still doesn’t fit him right around the wrists. He knows he has dark smudges under his eyes from his restless sleep of late and that he forgot to shave this morning. Or, he remembers with a start, yesterday morning. Normally Billy remembers when Teddy makes a face and complains about stubble burn, but he hasn’t said anything the last two days.

“Are you seeing a therapist?” Kate says, apparently not liking what she sees.

“No,” Billy says, short and quick. It’s not depression, he thinks, but guilt. The two riding crops of responsibility and guilt drive him, and constantly being in motion as a result is exhausting. He can cope with it, though. He can cope, and if he keeps telling himself that he’s fine he will be. 

“I think you should.”

That hurt. “Kate…”

“It’s not a bad thing,” she stresses. “There’s a lot of stuff going on in your life. And … I’m worried about you.” Her expression radiates concern and love in equal measure, and Billy feels a pang of guilt that he is the one causing her to feel that anxiety.

“I’m really okay,” Billy says. He tries to smile. It feels false. He wonders what she has been told. Has Loki been talking to her? Billy dismisses that thought immediately. If Loki had told Kate that Billy had only been stopped from killing himself through _Loki’s_ actions, he would know. He is fairly sure that the entire _ship_ would know by now, and there would be interventions and less gentle suggestions as telling him that he will be seeing a therapist.

“All right,” Kate says after studying his face intently. From her expression she isn’t entirely pleased at what she finds but it isn’t as bad as she fears. “Just remember, I’m here okay?”

“Don’t worry,” Billy says. “You remain the second most texted person on my phone.”

*

Over the last two months Billy has been in contact with the Scarlet Witch. She sends him books sometimes, plucking the probabilities to find the exact one that means that her books will arrive on his bed at some point. Sometimes they talk. At first Billy can’t believe that she is really okay, that she can fight off the parasite’s influence enough that she can talk to him without wanting to tear open his soul or whatever it is that drives his parents to attack him while controlled.

She convinces him by, of all things, making it quite clear that while he is her son, he has other parents _too_ who have raised him and she would not presume to supplant them. He’s never been sure how to handle the whole spiritual reincarnation thing, so having the Scarlet Witch offer guidance, and useful guidance at that, is a sign that she is herself. After that, they start talking about ways to deal with the parasite, though it is difficult because Billy can’t tell her where he is, and he simply doesn’t know enough about how his magic works to explain what he did. 

Finally they decide that they should meet up in person to talk about their issues. The Scarlet Witch says she wants to see how Billy is holding up under the strain as well, which Billy found oddly upsetting. There is nothing he wants more than for someone to come in and make it all better right now. He is starting to think that _something_ is wrong with his relationship with Teddy, something profound and deep and intrinsically wrong. As Teddy is perfect and the best boyfriend Billy could wish for, it must be a problem with Billy.

He wants to lay out his issues on the table for her to solve. She’s an Avenger who fights planetary threats, so surely she can help him solve his problems. Billy tells himself this in the lead up to their meeting, holds onto this faith like a talisman against his own anxiety, and tries to convince himself that after the meeting everything will be better. 

As such, when it turns out that the Scarlet Witch has invited Billy’s parents and fake-Teddy’s-mom, it hurts. It’s his fault that an Avenger is unable to fight back, and that knowledge undercuts all of the confidence Billy has built up about his magic. He understands now that Loki does tell the truth when the truth hurts more than a lie. The truth of the matter is that Billy is still too willing to avoid pain to avoid solving his problems, and that avoidance hurts the people around him. He doesn’t know how to change that, but he dwells on it afterward during the flight up to the space station. He can see Teddy look at him, and at least once look like he is about to say something, but Billy isn’t able to think of anything other than his own disappointment.

“I guess we know your mom’s out,” Teddy says once they are back on the station.

Billy just drops into a chair and slumps against it.

“I thought this would be _different_ ,” he says finally, slouching further into the chair. He knows he’s making himself a smaller target, he knows that there’s nothing to fear, especially not from Teddy, but something about having even the _Scarlet Witch_ reinfected reduces him to the scared bullied boy he used to be. “She _was_ different when we spoke to her.”

“Yeah, she was,” Teddy says. He rakes his hand through his hair, and Billy can tell that he’s agitated by the way that it sticks up at all angles afterward rather than settling into ‘artfully tousled. “But if your mom can’t hold it off like that, no-one else has got a hope.”

“I know,” Billy says. He does know. He knows that the Scarlet Witch holding off the parasite’s influence was his last hope of not having to master his magic to save his family. He had hoped, selfishly, that maybe he could finally meet with the Scarlet Witch, explain to her face to face what happened and then she could fix it.

“It’s really up to us,” he says. He hopes that it sounds certain and decisive. Instead it sounds terrified. Which, Billy supposes, he is.

“Yeah,” Teddy says. He looks at Billy carefully. “You okay?”

Billy isn’t sure that he is. “I wanted her to be okay,” he says finally. There’s something painful about having not only altered the realities of his parents, but the Scarlet Witch. He feels like the worst kind of bully.

“I did too,” Teddy says, resting his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “But we had to try, right? Having your mom on our side would have helped you a lot.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” Billy says. “We’re relying on Loki being semi-honest, and I don’t really know that he knows how that works.”

“We’ve got a plan,” Teddy says. “You’re doing great at learning how to use your magic.”

Billy shrugs under Teddy’s hand. “I don’t feel that way. I was able to do all this stuff _before_.” He knows he’s sulking now, and he tries not to sulk. But today all they did was practice divination and Billy doesn’t _want_ to be good at divination. He wants to know the magic to rip the parasite out of this world and put it back where it came from. Loki keeps saying that he’s not ready for that yet, and that there are other issues closer to home for him to deal with first. Billy has no idea what he’s talking about, and he starts to turn over everything to work out Loki’s meaning. Is Kate in trouble, he wonders. She is the only one of them with responsibilities and commitments outside of school. He isn’t sure how he could fix that, though.

“I think you’re better,” Teddy says. Teddy always seems to know the right thing to say to break Billy out of his introspection.

“Yeah?” Billy says. He leans forward, barely breathing. There’s been months of Loki telling him how he’s progressing very slowly, but he hasn’t been sure whether that’s truth or whether it’s just Loki lying because it’s what Loki does. Teddy, though, always speaks the truth when he needs to hear it. If Teddy says it, it must be true.

“Before you were always kind of … sloppy,” Teddy says, gesturing vaguely with his spare hand.

“What, you mean learning from Opening Your Chakras _isn’t_ a good way to learn magic?” Billy says in spite of himself. 

“Let me finish,” Teddy says. He frowns, but it’s not angry. There’s a streak of good natured exasperation, but that’s usual.

Billy mimes zipping his mouth closed, before gesturing with one hand for Teddy to continue.

“Now, when you do something you _mean_ it,” Teddy says. “Remember those times when you used to have to like babble something for a _minute_ before something happened? You can do it in three turns now, if that.”

“So it’s like as part of my leveling up I got faster spellcasting?” Billy says. “That’s cool.”

Teddy makes a face of fond exasperation. “Yeah, it’s like your build for a warlock is finally paying off, despite the fact that your WIS scores are still really low.”

“I knew I should have rolled better stats when deciding on my super power,” Billy says. He can’t dispute that he lacks common sense, though he would question whether a warlock could be any good with a low WIS score.

“Though your LUCK scores are through the roof,” Teddy says.

“I know,” Billy says. “I’ve got you, don’t I?”

“Anyway,” Teddy says, apparently completely ignoring the dorky attempt at flirting. “I don’t like that you’re taking lessons from Loki, even if he hasn’t done anything really evil in like _three weeks_ , so I guess that’s a dry spell for him.”

“And even then it’s just being a troll on Instagram,” Billy says. “If anything, he’s just found his kind.”

“I am never going to finish,” Teddy says ruefully. “What happened to you zipping your mouth closed?”

Billy shrugs and tries to look innocent. From Teddy’s skeptical expression, he is about as good at it now as he was when he was a small child, without the advantage of being small and adorable.

“But I can’t deny that the lessons have made you better. You’re faster, you’re more confident, and when you teleport people I don’t want to throw up afterward at least half the time.”

“Why _do_ people throw up afterward?” Billy says. He has never understood it; when he teleports himself he closes his eyes in one location and opens them in the next. If it had been just Tommy who complained that teleportation made him sick he would have just dismissed it as Tommy being an asshole, but it was almost universal. The last time he had teleported the group, Loki had thrown up on his shoes. He isn’t sure if that is a pointed message or not. “I could do it slower next time.”

“No!” Teddy blurts out, and then looks sheepish. “It’s easier the faster you go. We can’t see as much then.”

“See what?”

“Just … _see_ ,” Teddy says with a shudder. “You don’t see it?”

“Uh,” Billy says. “No? It’s instantaneous for me.”

“That’s something at least,” Teddy says. “You’re much better at not making us sick now.”

“Thanks,” Billy says, and makes a mental note to find out from whoever will tell him what it is that they see when he teleports them, without lying or hyperbole. “I always aspired to not making my friends throw up.”

“I’m serious,” Teddy says. “You’re really focused on your studies, and now we’ve got some real books for you, you’ll get it under control. I know it.” 

Billy doesn’t. Billy knows that his power is uncertain and mutable, subject to whims he barely understands. He knows that desire for him is a dangerous thing and that he should focus on facts. The facts are that he is only beginning his journey to learn how to use his magic, that he genuinely has no idea what he is doing, and that he is most likely still a threat to everyone around him. 

But when Teddy smiles at him like that, open and sunny, Billy wants to believe otherwise. He tells himself _I want him to be right_. If it’s a spell, he doesn’t know and doesn’t think it would matter.

*

Billy stays up reading the magical texts they’ve borrowed from around the world, squinting at the words until they make sense to him. Most of the time they don’t; he can read them several times and still be left wondering what it is that they are meant to do. Sometimes, however, they do, and this is what keeps him reading all hours of the night until the words blur, he closes his eyes to try and refocus them, and wakes up several hours later cradling the books to his chest like particular horrifying teddy bears.

He’s used to it now, and he only makes a strangled gasp when he wakes up to find out that one has started to fuse with his arm as opposed to screaming until he’s hoarse. He pulls it away with one hand and notices that this time, there’s a blanket draped over him and a note from Teddy. ‘I love you’ it says. ‘I don’t know how to help you, but I want you to know that I love you.’

Billy levers himself out of the couch, wincing at how stiff his muscles are, and pads on bare feet through the station to the room. Despite their time on the station, there’s really still only a bed in the room. Despite the bed’s size, Teddy isn’t sprawled across it. Instead he is sleeping in the exact spot he sleeps whenever he and Billy share a bed, and there’s a space to the left where Billy could, if he wants to, slide in and sleep next to him. 

“I love you too,” Billy says, trying his best to get into bed without waking Teddy up. Judging by the way that Teddy stirs, he doesn’t do a good job. “Sorry,” Billy whispers.

“Your feet are cold,” Teddy says, his voice thick with sleep.

“Sorry,” Billy says again. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Teddy says on a sigh, before his breathing levels out. Billy waits but Teddy doesn’t say anything more. He’s not sure what that means, but thinks that Kate may have something when she says that for all that Billy and Teddy love one another, they don’t know how to talk to one another. Billy genuinely had no idea that Teddy missed a person who was always _here_.

Billy resolves that tomorrow, after they finish dealing with the Skrulls, Billy will find a quiet moment when they don’t have to do something and tell Teddy everything. He’ll lay it all out on the table for Teddy, and if Teddy thinks that Billy needs to talk to a professional he will. _Tomorrow_ , he decides, and lets himself fall asleep next to Teddy, secure under the arm that Teddy has thrown across him while dreaming. Tomorrow he’ll have to be ready for whatever it is the Skrulls throw at him, so that he can tell Teddy everything.


End file.
